


we build our homes

by cendal



Category: Infernal Devices Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-05
Updated: 2015-02-05
Packaged: 2018-03-10 16:27:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3296984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cendal/pseuds/cendal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They don't need to say "I love you" for them to understand it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we build our homes

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this maybe 2 years ago when i was getting through the last book. i'm fond of it, as disjointed as it is, so maybe other people will enjoy this as well.

i.

He clutches onto the front of your shirt like a lifeline and buries his face into the juncture between your neck and shoulder to breathe _don’t leave me_ like a prayer, and you whisper _I’m here_ into his hair because that is the only fact that you can give him.

(It starts to sound like _I don’t want to go_ and he takes comfort in it, as substanceless as it is, because he has no sense of what the world is like beyond the crumbs he has always been given. _It isn’t fair_ , he says, soft and pained the way he sounds when he reveals anything about his family.

_I know_ , you reply, because what else can you say? Your death looms just around the corner, and nothing is going to stop it. Although you have known this for years, it doesn’t make it any easier.)

  
  
  


ii.

Will borders on reckless on his best days, downright suicidal on his worst. You know when to scold him and when to praise him and when to say nothing at all.

You trace an _iratze_ onto his skin with the tip of your stele. He likes for you to do it; a rune carved by your _parabatai_ are stronger than those carved by anyone else. It is one of the only indulgences that he’ll admit to. He leans away from the touch of metal, and when you glance up at him, he is looking at the blood he’s tracked onto your floor.

“I expect I’ll have to clean that up,” he says, long-sufferingly. It makes you laugh, just a little, and you’re glad for your steady hand. “You can stand off to the side and tell me that you’ll have my head if I allow it to seep into the wood.”

“Of course,” you say, finishing the last _iratze_. “I will be the most irate taskmaster you can imagine. You’ll wish that you had made the runes yourself by the time the floor is scrubbed to my standards.”

He’s careful not to move much while you wipe the blood off of his face, but when you’re done, he takes the wet cloth from your grasp and uses it to clean his arm, the _iratze_ still standing out starkly on his skin. “You overestimate me. I’d be in tears long before then.” He grins at you, the ends of his dark hair slightly damp.

You reach out to fold his collar so that his curls don’t sweep across the top of it. “That’s only because we’d be here for an hour at _least_. Mopping floors isn’t exactly your strong suit.”

He catches your hand as you retract it and brushes his lips against your knuckles. “I detest it considerably, in fact, but there is naught I can deny you.” The sly smile he shoots you belies his exaggeratedly courteous words.

“The last time you said that—”

“That wasn’t my fault!”

“Oh?” You raise your eyebrows at him as he attempts an innocent expression. “You fought an ifrit that had been eating a plant. I am fairly certain that it _was_ your fault.”

“The plant was radiating _agony_ ,” he asserts. “Helping it was the only humane course of action. Would you rather I let him desecrate a poor plant that was practically pleading with me to save it?”

  
  
  


iii.

You touch the inside of his wrist, watch him still at the contact. “Rest,” you tell him softly. “We can manage without you for a night.”

He close his eyes and lets out a shaky breath. “Right as always, James.”

  
  
  


iv.

Will is all jagged edges and constrained passion. He cares too much and shows it too little, makes those moments precious and defined. The only times he is anything close to soft is when he is with you.

Sometimes he sits in the armchair in your room and counts your breaths while you sleep. (The first time, you have a nightmare, and he is there to wake you; when you ask, bewildered, what he was doing there, he says that he was reading one of your books. He does not ask you what you dreamt and he does not seek to comfort you.

The second time, you watch him through half-slitted eyes until he looks up from lines of music and says with surprising fierceness, “You will not die on my watch,” and it is an explanation and a confession. [ _I want to believe that you will be safe as long as I am here_.]

You are able to rest easier after that.)

On a few occasions you manage to coax him into your bed; something about it makes the lines of his body rigid, and his arms do not touch yours. You rectify this after a minute of tension by tugging him closer and throwing an arm over him as you roll onto your side. The contact seems to relax him, and he settles more comfortably against the mattress; he turns his head toward you and grins when he sees you already looking at him.

“Just imagine,” he says, delighted and teasing, “mine will be the last face you see tonight.”

“Never was there a better sight,” you reply, sounding more fond than you intend to, and the curve of his mouth mellows into a warm smile. You fall asleep with your cheek on his shoulder and his fingers trailing against the knobs of your spine.

Dawn is gentle when you wake. The sunrise filters in through the shutters, caressing Will’s dark hair and the flutter of his eyelids. He looks utterly at peace with the world, and affection crests in your breast.

(He is what no one else ever could be and what everything has always meant: love is the greatest force in the universe, greater than duty and greed and hatred and lust, greater than the stars overhead and the pull of the sun, greater even than the force that holds space together.)

  
  
  


v.

To see him again would be to see paradise. You had never fervently hoped to meet someone again in the next life until you met Will.

(You remember his eyes at thirteen, darkened with the ghosts of his past, at odds with his quickly smiling mouth. They brighten when he manages to startle you into a laugh and when he sees you in the morning. Falling in love is the easiest thing in the world when faced with William Herondale glowing with happiness after he knocks the longsword out of your hands and says, “So you’ll be my _parabatai_ after all,” as if nothing could have pleased him more.

You understand everything when you carve the _parabatai_ rune over his heart, your arm warm where he had placed your own rune, and later you trace the symbol on his chest with trembling fingers and he kisses the mark on your arm as if it were something to be treasured.)

There is little left you say; all your words died with Will. You place flowers over his gravestone (all chosen for individual meanings; Will would have loved them **—** they make an awful bouquet) and whisper, “May we meet again, my brother, my soul.”


End file.
